This golf course was idyllic.

I guess most of them are.

But something about this one was special.

I now had an up close view of the candy cane looking lighthouse because the course was nestled against the coast right next to it.

I stopped setting up my camera equipment to look at my phone for the millionth time.

I still had no new texts since the one Tate had sent me after I went to sleep, so I read it again.

I'm sorry. I just got back, and now I have curfew. I'll make it up to you tomorrow.

I finished adjusting my settings and took some landscape shots. Not my forte, but I wasn't sure anyone could take a bad picture of this place.

I would live there—like on a permanent vacation.

I wanted to hold on to the warmth in my heart because the negative thoughts were trying to overpower it.

Had my moment come to a close—our right now over? I'd made it to four weeks since our kiss, and I felt like I'd worn out my welcome. This was the point where the end of every one of Tate's relationships had begun.

Why did I expect ours to be any different?

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to remember his words, trying to remember the way he looked at me.

Don't give up on him. I matter to him. He loves me. But did I scare him by saying it out loud?

When I opened my eyes, the team had come out onto the first hole.

Tate found me almost immediately—like I was his beacon—and everything melted away. We were in a vortex together, nothing else around us mattered, nothing else could come between us.

I smiled knowingly at him as he walked toward me. The entire world blurry except for him.

"Did you get it?" he asked when he was still twenty feet away. He couldn't wait until he was close because my face was an open book.

I nodded excitedly, jumping up and down, and when Tate reached me, he scooped me up and kissed me so hard, I swooned.

"You're amazing, Devin." He placed me back on my feet and cupped his hands around my cheeks. "You're amazing. I'm so proud of you." He kept kissing me between his sentences. "I'm sorry." Kiss. "I needed a minute." Kiss. "And I'm working through it, okay?" Kiss. "I love you." Kiss. "I'm trying. For you."

I looked up into his sincere face. Why did I doubt him?

"It's okay. It's okay," I whispered.

Someone entered our vortex out of the corner of my eye. Maybe because she'd been standing there too long. She'd been so still she got sucked up into our black hole.

I flickered my eyes to her. A tall, beautiful, middle-aged brunette with stunning blue eyes—Tate's eyes; well, eye—was watching us. Her floral maxi dress whipped around her ankles when a gust of wind blew threw us.

A man thirty yards behind her came into focus.

They were both watching us.

She had a loving smile on her face like what we were doing made her happy. Almost a look of pure wonder like she'd never seen something so beautiful; like she'd never seen two people in love, and it was magnificent.

The man stood behind her looking like he didn't belong there; like he wanted to be anywhere but there.

My first thought was that it was Tate's parents, but the man was everything that Tate wasn't. Messy blond curls and a bright patterned beach shirt. He looked like he'd just come from surfing. Not at all what I pictured his father looking like.

I looked back at Tate, who was tucking my hair behind my ear.

"Do you know her?" I asked.

Tate craned his neck, and when it registered what and who he was looking at, everything drained from his face. When I say everything, I mean everything.

This was the moment I knew everything had changed. Forget what he told me. I watched him regress into himself.

It's hard to describe—the way he collapsed, folding himself into the depths of his mind. It was harrowing to see firsthand.

I wasn't sure he even realized I was there anymore. He'd gone somewhere in his brain that I couldn't reach. His face was emotionless, hollow, empty—almost scary how much it was filled with nothing.

He dropped his hands like I was burning him.

He moved to stand in front of her before I could try to bring him back to me; before I could try to snap him out of it. I could just make out his low growl.

"I told you not to come here. Especially with him."

She didn't look happy anymore. She looked sad more than anything. "Please try. For me."

"I don't have it in me to."

She glanced at me and smiled softly back at Tate. "Do you at least understand now?"

I couldn't see Tate's face because he didn't turn around, but I could see every muscle in his back go rigid. He balled his hands into fists. "No, I will never fucking understand." Then he pushed past her. "Leave. Or I will."

She stood there for a second as Tate retreated out of ear shot. Her eyes glistened with tears, but they didn't fall. For a second, I honestly thought they looked like happy tears, but there was no way that was possible.

I was frozen, not knowing what to say or how to act. I shifted on my feet. I opened my mouth but shut it quickly, thinking anything I had to say was stupid. There was nothing I could say to this stranger.

Despite the anger and grief they'd just shared, she smiled at me—the kind only a mother could give—and she proved to me that it was absolutely possible for her to be happy in that moment.

"I thought I'd never get to see my son in love."

| ⛳️ |

She left, but I thought it was Tate who really wanted to.

If Tate hadn't grown up playing that course, he would have been losing—badly. But he knew it like the back of his hand so he was hanging on by one stroke.

All while looking like he wished he was anywhere else.

One thing he refused to look at? Me.

Whatever he had mustered inside of him to try for me was broken. We were back to his first tournament. Back to him ignoring me. Back to him running.

I could see it in his body language. He'd angle his body away from me. His head was always strained to one side; the side I wasn't facing.

I could see it in his face. He'd close his eyes for seconds at a time. He'd rub his hand over it, clearing the emotions like he was clearing a white board.

I'd lost him. And I didn't even know what was wrong to be able to figure out how to bring him back.

When the first day of the tournament came to a close, he left his clubs sitting there on the course, and bolted toward the clubhouse. I hurried behind him, trying to catch up with his long strides by double timing mine. I pulled open the heavy double door he'd gone through. It was freezing inside. The hair stood up on my arms, goosebumps cascading from my shoulders to my wrists. Goosebumps that weren't the good kind.

Thankfully, Tate had stopped in the front foyer for a second to pull out his phone.

"Tate!" I called. God, I sounded distressed. He had to see it on my face when he looked up at me, but his was blank.

His eyes were missing something; missing anything. I couldn't catch my breath. My lungs were stuck, fighting for air, as I took a few more steps. Just like that, his brown eye turned downright angry.

"Don't follow me, Devin. I mean it."

I came to a halt. I put my hand down on the circular wooden table with a beautiful tall vase of gorgeous white calla lillies in the center so I wouldn't fall over. The vase rocked. Tears welled in my eyes. I'd never heard his voice sound so full of rage, and it shook me like an earthquake.

He looked indifferent as he watched me for two more seconds to see if I was going to come any further. He didn't care how upset I was. He glanced back at his phone, one more time at me like I was an annoyance, and then he was out the door, leaving me with tears streaming down my face.

"What happened?"

I wheeled around to see Seth with his hands clasped tightly around the back of his neck, worry and concern etched across his face.

He tensed up uncomfortably like most men do when they realize a woman is crying in their presence.

"I don't know," I sobbed. "It happened so fast. He was fine one minute, and then the next he wasn't."

Seth stepped toward me and wrapped his arms around my shoulders awkwardly, but I didn't care. I cried into his Southern Florida polo, thankful for the tiniest bit of comfort.

"Hey, it's okay. We'll find him. Give him some space. When this stuff happens he usually holes up in his room, but I don't think I've ever seen him look like that before." Seth squeezed me. "Come on. Let's go back to the hotel. I'll check our room first."

I sniffled. "Okay, but we need to get his golf bag first."

Of course, Tate wasn't in his hotel room. That would've been the last place I would have gone too. Especially if I'd been in my hometown.

But I didn't know about Tate's life in Hilton Head. He barely talked about it. I didn't know where he would have gone. I didn't know where his parents lived. And I figured that wasn't where he went anyway if he didn't want to see his mother.

I didn't ask Seth if he thought I should call. Probably against my better judgement, I did anyway—seventeen times—and I got his voicemail every time.

Seth tried once to appease me as we stood in the hallway, but no luck.

"Devin, we'll find him," he repeated, shaking his head. "Why don't you go back to your room, and we can let each other know when one of us hears from him."

I nodded, tears freely flowing again. "Thank you, Seth," I whispered.

"Of course," Seth said, trying to sympathize with my extreme emotions. "Look... he will turn up. He always does. He hurts, he shuts down, then he finds it within himself to come out of it and keep going. I see it all the time. I'll text you, I promise."

All I could do was lay on my scratchy, uncomfortable bed, stare at the white ceiling, and send Tate a text every five minutes.

I love you.

I'm not going anywhere.

If you'll help me understand what's wrong, we can talk through it.

Nothing you can say will change my mind.

I mean it.

Please let me in.

Tate, please.

I love you.

I'll never stop.

I promise.

I'm not giving up on you.

Eventually, I fell asleep from crying so hard.

Hours later I felt like I'd been slapped awake when my phone dinged. It was dark out. My room was softly lit from the street lights in the parking lot. I had no idea what time it was. I glanced at the red clock illuminating in the darkness. 10:54 p.m.

I felt around frantically for my phone, willing it to appear in my hands. It took me over thirty seconds to realize it had fallen in between the mattress and the headboard. I stretched my fingers as far as my little body would allow without dislocating my shoulder, but I still couldn't quite grasp it with my fingertips.

I climbed under the bed, hitting my head in the process, and finally looked at my phone.

But it wasn't Tate.

I know where he is.